Recovery
by Cookie-Stories
Summary: Clint didn't know; Were they abusive, or violent? Did they play with her head, flip a switch and watch her lose control? "I was human once. Now I'm forgetting how it felt." - CLINTASHA WHUMP.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: sorry about the whole MIA thing i did back last year. i had really bad writer's block, and then i came up with this thing! it's a story by itself, a whole new take of mine on character WHUMP and stuff like that. well, typical sadistic me. anyway, i do hope you like it and i hope this actually goes smoothly enough for once! i apologize, for it isn't perfect, and i hope you trust me when i say that it gets better (or the good kind of worse) from here. remember to leave a review! (: love you guys xx.**

**disclaimer: disclaimed.**

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Their mission was to infiltrate the Russian triad base and cause hell on earth, because Fury knew that wreaking havoc was the duo's specialty. But SHIELD had overlooked the fact that the files were completely fake, and whoever Natasha had gone in to meet had scared her cold. Clint watched the determination on her face disintegrate into nothing but fear, something she wouldn't show every day. Her fingers trembled, and the gun was about to fall loose from her grasp.

"Phil. I need extra hands here." He had whispered into the comm. He was about to shoot, his scope combing the area within the warehouse building. Nine heads to kill, he had counted, excluding the last head which was his partner's. And then something came down hard on his skull, and it really felt like his head had split in half.

A warm, sticky liquid travelled down the center of his face, and he was only coherent enough to see the iron rod, which was dripping with his blood, have another go at his ribs. The Russian then fell beside him after backup had fired two rounds in him, one in his leg and another right through his heart. And in his ear, the shrilling screech of his partner's violent, fearful scream pierced his one ear, but only barely.

Within the two minutes that it had taken the whole SHIELD exfiltration team to center in around Clint, he had gone - somehow - grey and waxen, and the men had taken Natasha to somewhere unknown, probably a basement or somewhere that jammed the signals. They couldn't triangulate her earwig or cell.

Phil sighed, and instructed the exfiltration team to head back to the quinjet, helping carry the archer's deadweight mass. He made sure that proper support was given to the neck and head, because they didn't bring down any resources to ensure the utmost safety to Clint's spine. It was a risky move to carry him back, but Phil knew the odds. They needed to link him up and had they waited another three minutes longer, he would've been too far gone to save.

They hooked him up to machines on the quinjet, the ones that checked his vitals and the ones that helped him breathe. When his vitals got too low, they took turns compressing his chest until they got back to the helipad on base where the medics took over. And Phil was going out of his mind with everything revolving around him. Losing Natasha, and having Clint almost die in his hands as if the former situation wasn't bad enough. Then there was that imminent lecture from Fury.

He came while Phil was waiting outside the surgical room, where he could pretty much see through the barely transparent, tinted glass window and watch the highly skilled SHIELD medics as they operated on Clint's open brain, some of his blood on their sterile gowns. Phil was about to stand when Fury motioned with a hand to stay as he was. "Stand down." He ordered, then looked through the window at the archer and barely there his vitals, and he took a seat beside Phil sighed. Nick Fury sighed, and the whole of SHIELD knew that he never once sighed.

"I could've saved them. Both of them. I could've called for perimeter around the warehouse, an extra pair of eyes to have Clint's back. They wouldn't have had a chance to take her away, or send a man to bludgeon him to this state. The blood is entirely on my hands." said Phil, very openly to the director after they shared a brief moment of tensive silence, not that they were friends or anything close to that.

"You couldn't have known." Fury countered. He could hear his agent's angered breathing becoming more audible. It was only due time that he would erupt, maybe kick a metal bin to the floor or punch a wall. It had to be some real heavy weight on his shoulders to be in and out of the infirmary waiting for news on whether Clint or Natasha lived or died. "Given the circumstances-"

And Phil shot up, definitely pissed as hell. Maybe Fury's presence did that to people, made them pissed whether or not he was being hard assed or sympathetic. "Screw the circumstances!" He yelled, earning a few curious looks from the medics in the surgical room and a few peeking heads from others in the wards. "I'm their handler. I should know every risk and every worst possible scenario, everything they don't. I should've known better than to think with my ass at the expense of their lives."

It shut Fury up, really, for he didn't know what to say. Phil Coulson was still a good agent and handler nonetheless, but anyone would freak out and go into a nervous breakdown when something like that happened. They, being in charge, were meant to manipulate the circumstances, not succumb to it. "I could've done so much more to protect them. But I..." _Failed_, he had wanted to say. Guilt continued to consume the man as he sat down once more, head hanging in his hands.

He was close to giving up, throw away his job because he felt he wasn't any good at it. "Things happen. It's the first thing we teach to anyone we recruit. We can't control or predict the situation, and it's just pure luck that it happened to Barton and Romanoff. You don't have to condemn yourself for the repercussions of something you can't control, and it's an order, agent." explained Fury. He tugged on his leather coat and propped his chin up higher, and he stared the man down with his one eye.

"Tall order, sir." Phil chuckled humorlessly. With much chagrin and an audible sigh, he continued. "It's not just Romanoff that I'm worried about. I'm worried about him," He jerked his head towards the surgical room, hinting the archer. "When he wakes up, if he wakes up. Clint's still barely whole enough to handle his brother's death, wounds are still raw. I really don't know how I'm supposed to break it to him that his partner is presumed dead. I don't know what he's capable of doing to himself when he knows. He's always had this peculiar need to protect the people he cares about."

"Then we hope it doesn't come to that. The agents in intel. are doing elaborate searches on Romanoff's whereabouts, following anything that has to do with her current and past life. If there's anything, we'll be notified from here." replied Fury. He eyed his agent as he tensed, never ceasing to calm. The frowning muscles in his face were rigid and tight. They never relaxed. The director then grinned subtly. "It looks like a little bit of Barton's rubbing off on you."

"I've been with the kid for ten years. It's hard not to pick up on every detail. I watched him grow, or /not/ grow, for that matter." Phil said. He felt a tickle to his lips at the beginning of a slight smile.

Fury peered through the tinted window once more, watching the flurry of bodies moving around a table with his agent on it. His vitals showing on the machine were steady, and taking over the places of the exhausted surgeons were nurses in their scrubs, cleaning up. The surgeons were leaving. "Then you can watch him not grow for a while longer. They're done. He's good." He told Phil as he stood up, firmly shaking the handler's shoulder as he breathed an obvious sigh of relief, just as the surgeons exited the room.

Phil stood to advise with the doctor on Clint's condition. A bad cerebral hemorrhage that they had very difficultly managed to compensate. He also said that the archer was going to be comatose for quite a while, and that they couldn't tell when he'd wake. The earlier the better, but the body had to recuperate for its losses. And then the doctor left too.

Phil was about to turn and thank Fury for their time spent, maybe even say that they were one step closer to being work buddies, but then realized that he and his layers of black leather clothing had already left. _Never mind_, thought Phil. He would thank the man when he next saw him.

-page break-

She pressed the stopwatch and clocked in another 1 mile round. 3:49. He was getting faster, strides were getting longer. He was working his way back up to his trademark timing of exactly three minutes. None of the recruits had ever had even a close shave with his record, and he was going to keep it that way.

He signaled for one more round around the track, and she sighed. Stubborn, as always. "You shouldn't be pushing your body too much, Barton. It hasn't been long since you came to, and-" She started as he bolted past her, a cheeky grin present on his face that made his pale blue eyes stand out. She was pretty sure that they were a solid tone of emerald about three rounds ago.

"And Phil is going to _kill_ you if I end up dead on the tracks, I assume. He likes to make threats, but he doesn't keep to them. It's his 'thing'." Clint enunciated easily in between breaths. Then he chuckled and shook his head, easily breezing through half the circuit as he did until they both heard the door crank open. And God did those hinges have to be greased.

A tuxedoed man strode into the room just as Clint's cell pinged, and the archer knew that his handler was determined to get him off the tracks as soon as he entered. He did a sprint to the end of the mile, and earned praise from his female sub-handler when he clocked in an even faster timing. "Don't expect Agent Hill to drag you back to medical if you drop dead in here. You're going to have to drag yourself out of hell to walk yourself there when you do." Phil glared at him, and earned himself a sheepish smile from his agent. "You just ask for it, really."

Agent Hill took his training towel and threw him a bottle of mineral water, and walked halfway across the gym to toss the towel, damp with his perspiration, into the towel basket. She honestly pitied the helpers that had to clean it all up. Even she couldn't stand holding the towels by the tips of her fingernails, and it was coming from someone whose younger brothers loved fingering their noses for boogers to hurl.

Phil commanded for his agent to turn around, and he inspected the scar tissue on his scalp, felt around it a couple of times, demanded if it hurt, and checked his vitals. Clint would be the death of him when it came to keeping the intensity of his own trainings on the down low. "I try to be my best. Aim to be my best." He retorted smoothly, like he'd already rehearsed this conversation in his head. His handler blatantly huffed at his claim. "But why are you here, Phil? I'd honestly be flattered if you say you came to make sure I was alive. I already feel the love."

"Don't think ahead of yourself, Clint. I had to make sure that _she_ didn't have to drag something thrice her weight out if the gym. You wouldn't let her make a mile." He delivered the tease in such a deadpan voice that it had Clint squinting his eyes and scrutinizing his handler's every feature, as if to exaggerate. His handler was no fun today, all serious and stuff. Agent Hill was far better company. "Anyway, get cleaned up. There's something for you."

A mission? Clint hadn't yet been cleared for duty. Or maybe Fury was being all marshmallows and honey donuts on him today, finally allowing him to be sent on his first mission since coming to. "Was it about the ping?" He beamed like a kid put face to face with hard candy, not that he'd ever gotten within range of one when he was a kid. His parents - whose thoughts brought on a tiny dark storm cloud to rain on his happy streak a little - never let him near the shellac.

"Yeah, kind of. It's about Natasha." Phil watched the grin as it got wiped right off his face as soon as he heard the name. _Her_ name. And the guilt pierced right through his eyes, as evident as the way his jaw tightened and how he held his breath, muscles rigid from head to fingertip to toe. Clint looked like he was about to start hyperventilating, with how the color in his cheeks disappeared to a pale white.

After everything he did to take his mind off the realization that she was as good as dead, it had to surface again, just when that wound of his was getting numb enough to put aside. The pangs bounced back on him with full intensity, and his head started to hurt where he'd been hit six months ago. He shut his eyes, and breathed to calm himself. "Is she... Did they find her body?" Or pieces of it, he thought in his head. Damn Russians.

"I don't know. I only know that they picked up on a solid lead, but I requested to be briefed with you. If it's anything bad, I wouldn't want to hear about it by myself any more than I know you would." Phil said in a low voice, almost like an inward sigh.

For seconds, there was only a painful silence between them that the two men shared. They both cared, and they both were hurt. Agent Hill left them for her own time, thinking that they probably needed a quiet moment to themselves once she overheard the name. It was a name that all agents wouldn't dare to even breathe, for it was too tragic to speak about someone who had been snatched right off the grid for six months, and god knew what happened to her.

"Do you think she's still- The chances of it, do you think it's possible? Even the slightest bit that we might find her alive?" He asked his handler, for Phil was always the realistic one, plus a dash of faith.

But Phil shook his head this time, and he sighed. His face fell like the agent's. "You know the window, Clint. Six months is four months too long, especially when the people that have her have something against her. It would have been of their intentions to discard of her when they were done the first few weeks. I'm sorry." Because such kidnappings were for torture's sake, unlike those child ones that were always for ransom.

They would have been done with her, unless she was needed for something like leverage. But it was far too late. Even a part of Clint gave up, because he felt, he cared, he hurt, and he loved. Holding on to something even less than a slight glimmer of hope would only make things harder to cope with, like when someone eventually broke the news that local authorities found a Jane Doe's brutally tortured corpse, already months into decay, in someone's backyard. And that Jane Doe's hair was of a scarlet shade, just like Natasha's, and that she and Jane Doe bore an uncanny resemblance.

"Natasha does tend to surprise people in the most unexpected ways. I think I'm allowed to hold on to at least that." He said with painful grimace in his words and his features, and he walked to an empty bench and sat. The name still stung his lips.

Phil followed, and stood by him with some quiet agreement and silent support. "I'll see you in thirty, alright? We'll be in intel." He patted Clint's shoulder, and gave him a gentle squeeze as if to say that he was there. That they were there for each other. And then he left.

For some reason, the creak of the hinges, in the complete silence of the vacant gym, sounded so much like the way he remembered her screams in the comm. that night before they took her away. For more reasons, it kind of killed him to hear it while it lasted, but it had him wanting to hear it again when it was gone. It was honestly all he had left of Natasha that was any real.

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**TBC.**

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_Chapter preview: "He leaned forward, and both his hands went down onto the table with a loud slam. "Stop messing with me!" He yelled, voice penetrating all silence. She visibly jumped, and she sure as hell wasn't faking it. He could see it in her eyes, in her posture. Genuine fear, because she felt that he was a threat and that she needed at least three more minutes to slip her cuffs sloppily, five for precision, if she didn't want any bad scars to bring home to the Red Room. That was, if she did live to go back. He could have stopped her easily."_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: back for another chapter. it's significantly shorter and really badly/abruptly cut because the original length was far too long, so i promise you longer chapters after this one, i hope! plus i doubt i'm updating regularly, because of school and all, but i'll write beforehand to try and make the 5 day deadlines! anyway, this scene might feel a little rushed, because, you know, everyone just wants to get to the part where Clint finds Natasha and all. i hate writing the fillers the most it's so needed yet not needed gosh! anyway, i hope you like this chapter, with a little surprise for the end. oh- and i'm starting to put sneak peeks at the end of the chapters (: reviews appreciated, especially if you try to guess the big WHATS HAPPENING question mark at the last part!**

**disclaimer: disclaimed.**

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Across the table from him was the blonde in the handcuffs. She had curls that barely differed from Natasha's, and they rested lazily on her hunched shoulders. The irises of her almond shaped eyes were a mix between green and blue, and that brought out her pale porcelain skin with much vibrance. Save for the straight nose and high cheekbones, and maybe if she carried around some false ID, she could have pulled off the persona of a full and pure American.

The woman was Red Room, their solid lead and direct ticket to finding Natasha. They knew because she announced it to the whole world when she walked right into the building. Clint knew from the way she held herself.

He had been around Natasha enough to know the specifics, like how their necks were tightly chained to overhead bars when they were younger so they could practice poise - other than the compulsory lessons of ballet over the years. There was also the tendency of turning her chins up and straight, because they were taught in body language, and even if the chin fell a degree below a certain accepted level, it showed fear. The woman had it all, just like his partner did.

"What's your name?" He asked. The both of them were in some sort of a staring contest, of who would be intimidated first. She lifted her chin even higher, adjusted a little, and she willingly replied. "Aleksandra Dubov." She said, eyes never leaving his. Her gaze was intense, if only it could kill.

It brought back memories of how he and Natasha had first officially met, in Paris. They had a stare-me-down, her gun and his bow and arrowhead, while they shared a little moment passing around fake credentials. Neither of them had let up until one of them put the face of the other to the rough, carpeted floor. "What are you here for? The Red Room doesn't just _walk in_." Clint continued. "Don't pull any stupid tricks or you'll regret it."

"I've told you my name, you tell me yours." said Aleksandra. She spoke with a thick Russian accent, the kind that he would find extremely lazy of a trained linguist. They would have trained all their agents to speak without giving away even a hint that they were Russian. He glared, and she narrowed her eyes into slits, falling back nonchalantly onto the backrest of the seat. "Your name, for everything you want to know. You're a skilled negotiator, and I assume you'd know that this offer is much to your side of the benefit."

And he was. They were trained as so, to be applied whenever they had something to negotiate for, like escaping a hostage situation and getting themselves out of a bad mess. Or to get answers worth more than just a name. "Clint Barton. Now, your business here?" He said, and if she was pulling a trick on him she would have won. Aleksandra's features tightened, and she stared intently at him. More of glared.

He leaned forward, and both his hands went down onto the table with a loud slam. "Stop messing with me!" He yelled, voice penetrating all silence. She visibly jumped, and she sure as hell wasn't faking it. He could see it in her eyes, in her posture. Genuine fear, because she felt that he was a threat and that she needed at least three more minutes to slip her cuffs sloppily, five for precision, if she didn't want any bad scars to bring home to the Red Room. That was, if she did live to go back. He could have stopped her easily.

"My patience is running thin, _Aleksandra_. You can either talk to me like the little helpless Red Room prisoner you are right now, or I would very well take this downstairs, where nobody can hear you scream for your life when you can't count the fingers on your hand anymore. And the guys behind the mirror, in my ear, they're not going to stop me. They might even hold the elevator." Clint voiced his threat. He could easily smell fear from this girl.

Every second he took to break this Aleksandra, to have her talk, was a second they couldn't lose. Natasha could have been dying, or the men that killed her could have been packing right at that moment, ready to disappear forever. "I'm just saying, I've dealt with the best, and you with your blood running cold right now, you don't come close. Plus, you're a skilled negotiator. I'd assume you'd know that taking up this offer is _very_ much to your side of the benefit."

She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. "I-I came here to seek revenge. I was supposed to kill you." She said in a small voice, and that had Clint realizing, after a slight moment of recognition of the timid child in her, that she was barely brushing twenty. She was just some kid, didn't know any better. "Six years ago, something happened in Paris. We didn't know what, but the leaders were mad. We only knew who went out there, the best we had, and then we realized what happened out there when she never came back. Natalya died."

"Two weeks ago, they took my little sister, Ana-Marie, from her bed. We were talking about when we would see the world together, when they put us on a mission. They took her, from under my nose. I knew that the slow learners like Ana would be taken, but it- They gave me a mission the following day, to come to Manhattan to kill you for the death of Natalya. They said they 'picked up a lead' after six years. They wanted to avenge her, and I had to do it. For Natalya Romanova." said Aleksandra. Her eyes were glassier, and he could see that she was about to let loose a tear.

Clint sat down calmly, gently. He figured that he would let her finish the story, even though his sentiment knew about the fact that it was most probably true. "I asked them about my sister's whereabouts, and they said that I just had to do the job, and that when I got back, Ana would be back from Istanbul from her mission. But Ana never had the mission, did she? They wanted to kill her, because she wasn't going to be the next Natalya Romanova to roam the Earth! She was the furthest that they could think of from that, and they took her like a pig to slaughter!"

"All I had left to do was to believe that they'd keep their word. To convince myself that killing you would solve everything. I'm just here, while Ana is somewhere out there waiting to die, to avenge someone who died six years ago. It doesn't make any sense!" She growled, voice quivering more as tears came more naturally to her. It was unusual, watching someone from the Red Room cry. He hadn't seen Natasha cry before, or maybe she never let him.

Little by little, the pieces came together, because the Red Room was way smarter than to bring forth to him someone who couldn't keep it together in interrogation. They had wanted SHIELD to kill the girl. She was catching the scent and they had to throw her off. And of course, with all the hard work they had been doing for the past six months or more, with God knows how many hostages, they would send the girl to SHIELD's doorstep. They did have to learn how taking away someone's kin would make them desperate for help, and he was willing to offer it.

"I know people that can help you find your sister." He said, and her eyes widened as she looked at him. He saw a glimpse of hope. "I have to explain a few things first. One, Natalya is alive. She's been here ever since Paris. We call her Natasha now. She's my partner, my friend. Or at least, she was..." Clint knew the pain he would drag himself through to talk about the things he would say next, but he figured it would get Aleksandra's aid. "The Red Room took her, six months ago."

"But she hasn't been taken prisoner in our base. I would know because I did some prison duty sometime ago, after an injury. She's not in there." She commented, partly surprised after learning about Natasha's existence. She wiped her tear-stained face with the back of her shackled hand.

And then she looked at Clint, with a slightly sullen look on his face, and her breath caught. "You don't think she's still alive, do you?" It was more like a revelation of her own than a question.

-page break-

The men picked her up by her twig arms, reduced to bone and barely any fat or muscle. Watching the lack of fight in her, as they dragged her out, was shredding him apart internally. When he called her name, she was barely awake, and when she was, she was either delirious or lost. This woman, she wasn't Natasha. It wasn't even half of her.

By the window, he yelled her name. _Natasha!_ But little by little, over the days, she had started to be oblivious to his screams, while he became less to hers. "Natalya, please... Please, look at me!" He pleaded, but her head hung loose. One of the men stopped by his door and cursed in Russian, and kicked dirt in his face.

Yet, he wasn't going to give up. He knew what was going on. Every time she went out and returned, without blood staining her clothes or scars covering her back, something in her receded. It was either her consciousness or her will. After the first two weeks, he had been woken up by her sudden screams every now and then, and there was nothing and no one in the room. It had been three months now.

"Look at me. You have to look at me! Natalya, please!" Desperation seeped through his pleads. Natasha lifted her head only barely, eyes effortfully rolling towards the sound of his voice. She moaned, and that took a lot out of her. She choked on her breath, slowly slipping further away from consciousness right after.

He turned to the men. He was already far beyond desperate. "Please!" He begged, already on his knees. "I don't know what you're giving her, but she can't take it everyday. It's going to kill her! Just give her a day, please!" But they didn't listen to a word he said. They went ahead and dragged her deadweight body along, held together just by skin and bone. She looked so fragile, and that made him hurt too much on the inside.

His face felt hot, a rush of heat invading his headspace as he watched, vision blurring with tears. The only other woman he had ever loved, the only one that never died, stopped fighting for her life. She never stopped fighting, not for him and not for her, not for someone else's sibling or even a stranger. She never did, and now it hurt too much to watch as she did just that.

"Natalya..." Went the voice, only to be silenced by the men as they shut the door behind them, and Natasha was out of sight. He prepared himself beforehand, for the coming onset of deafening screams, tears and hallucinations of hers for when she got back.

It never got better, really. Only worse.

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**TBC**

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_"They teach you things, back there in Russia. They tell you that 90% of the time you only live 60 days at most once you're taken. They break you, and then they dispose of you. She tells me." Funny, how such a brutal interrogation turned out to be a little Assassins' Anonymous between the two. Less than five minutes ago, he was threatening her with the pain of losing her fingers. _


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: well hey! this will be a long one. so buckle up, get some popcorn, and enjoy this intensely productive but non-productive and overly informative conversation. i promise, way more action and Clintasha will come soon. soon meaning, either the next chapter or the chapter after (; reviews are appreciated! see ya on thursday mwah. (and wish me luck for an upcoming dance competition on tuesday i'm fretting even after a 12 hour week!)**

**disclaimer: disclaimed. i have a certain fascination of making up characters that either don't live to see the next chapter, die trying, or disappear into thin air like cameos do.**

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_Alive_, Clint scoffed in his head, oblivious to the fact that his jaw had tightened and his eyes had hardened when he did. He wanted to tell the girl that he honestly didn't know, but he did know, at the back of his mind, the answer to her question. No, none of them carried the hope that she was still alive, if even just barely. "You're hurt. That is... Because you don't." She said, frowning. Ultimately she had found her own answer, just like Natasha always found hers just by watching him. Was he really getting that easy to read?

"They teach you things, back there in Russia. They tell you that 90% of the time you only live 60 days at most once you're taken. They break you, and then they dispose of you. She tells me." Funny, how such a brutal interrogation turned out to be a little Assassins' Anonymous between the two. Less than five minutes ago, he was threatening her with the pain of losing her fingers. "But that doesn't matter now, anymore. If she's alive, she's alive. And if she isn't, then we'll get those bastards anyway. Chances are, your sister and Natasha are under the same roof."

"Please, you have to find my sister. She's just thirteen! You have to take her from them! She's just too young..." Aleksandra pleaded immediately. At least she was hopeful. "I'd do anything to find Ana! Please, just help me find her!"

"I know you would." He said, and he rested his elbows on the table and caught his weight with them as he leaned closer to the blonde. "That's where you come in. You have answers that we need to find Natasha, and your sister. We have the resources and the manpower, extraction and rescue teams and people running the missions from this base. We help you, you give us the information we need to find their base and tear it down."

"But they never tell us anything clandestine. They have safe houses in places we don't know. I've ever only been to one, when they pulled me from the training room and had me sent over to deliver something in need of protection." Said Aleksandra.

"We only need patterns. We know that they hold a secret meeting every year, all around the world. Men with big names come together to buy over girls from the Red Room that they find are incapable of being any help to them." He saw the blonde's eyes widen, quite evidently in fear. Her sister would be part of the many girls that would be sold to find the Red Room.

And he was sure that she wasn't one to see or hear about it everyday like he and Natasha were. "We just don't know where they go to, when they have it, and who they have it with. I trust that they've taught you to pick up such traits. Natasha was always the only one good with it." Clint continued. She still looked spooked by his words. It was just like him, maybe a little less drastic, when Phil told him that Natasha was gone. And his head hurt. Recently it started to hurt only when he thought about Natasha. It was a brain thing, he knew, to associate his injury with what had happened to her the same day it happened to him.

Aleksandra slipped him a name, twice while he was stuck in his endlessly painful reverie of the events that happened that night. He tended to drift off there a lot, and more now, ever since Phil had brought it up. "Viktor Chuikov." She said, the name having rose from the back of her head to the surface.

"I saw him at one of those meetings. He came to the Red Room once, was good friends with our superiors. He goes by another name in the Red Room that I don't know of, but when he came for Natalya to issue her a mission about eight years ago, I recognized his face from when my parents gave us magazines to read at breakfast. I think he earned his governing position through the Red Room."

That mission sounded familiar. It happened during her darker times, she had said. Something - she didn't want to say - happened, and she was actively on brutal missions getting blood on her hands by the hour at the time. On this one, she mentioned that she had to torture and dismember the adolescent daughter of one of the ministers, Vlad Drakov, out of hiding. There had been many ways to find the man but sending him pieces of his daughter through the mail, a finger or an elbow, an eyeball or a bloody bone, seemed tragic enough.

It wasn't something she was particularly proud about, but all the sentiment and mercy hadn't mattered to her back then. She had thought that Clint would look at her different once she told him, and she never told him what made her that way, the way he found her, but the past never mattered to him. They barely differed from the other, what they did when they were at their lowest.

"Ran the name yet?" He spoke into his comm. device. Perkins, head of intelligence, was on the other side of the line, along with the people behind the mirror. What lack of privacy, really. If there was any chance they could see the man angry, it was the interrogation room. And they did get to see it, minutes ago. Maybe it had scared them off, the inhumane threats to Aleksandra.

_A minute, Barton. I'm not Red Bull or anything, just so you know. Plus your good friend Bethany Collins crushed a couple of my fingers just three weeks ago, and they're still healing_. The voice kind of whined back in his ear. Perkins was quite the genius whiner. He had the brains, but could do without a tongue or a mouth.

Clint rolled his eyes. "What about location? The last time you went to wherever to the deliver that... something, what caught your eye? When we get there, we'll scout the number of rooms. I just need specifics, like the kind of security they have in the country. Did they have any ongoing wars or tension? Anything to make it the last place on Earth to easily hold a meet. Places like these tend to divert the attention from a clandestine camp." He continued to Aleksandra.

She closed her eyes, frowning. "They hold it anywhere. The last time, I was sent to Kosovo, in 2004. They were having some kind of riot or war, which I later found out was the Kristallnacht of Kosovo. Troops were everywhere, making rounds with arms. I left before it escalated-"

There was a crackle in his ear again, and then the voice. _Something happened. Something bad just happened. I keyed in Viktor Chuikov's name into the database, and information appeared for a second there. Then, it suddenly got wiped clean of any traces of the man. I can't find anything on him now. I don't trust the girl. What if she just helped me tip off her superiors? Oh my god, we're going to die, aren't we? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..._

He stood up, shocking his interrogation guest a little as he had made a very graphic threat the last time he did, and moved to a corner. "Hey, calm down. We do those things too, remember? A month ago, you had to put a wipe on the new girl. It's just a precaution that the Red Room's taking. We'll see what she has to give first. And, you're on level six. If she's going to start killing anybody, she's most likely going to worry about getting past me first. And then go seven levels down to find you."

_You're not exactly helping, Barton. Just saying, you telling me that this Aleksandra Dubov even has a slight chance of getting past you to come down here, it's not that comforting, you know_, rambled Perkins, and he was just about to start when Aleksandra had gasped, eyes wide.

"I think I know where it's happening this time!" She exclaimed, and Clint almost ran to her table if not for his large strides, gesturing for her to continue. "A- A couple of weeks ago, they had us held in some lecture about Current Affairs. They talked about what was happening outside the base, and there was one place, I vaguely remember, that's just like Kosovo. They told us about the Russia-Georgia war, in South Ossetia. But if I were them, I'd choose a place that isn't hunting all of me down."

"Wrong." He interjected, pointing a finger at her. "It's common politics. Provide them money and weapons to defend themselves against the Georgians, and they close an eye on who goes in and out, and what you do there. They might even be in on it, in such a case. Connections."

"So, the Red Room and the Ossetians? If they make the connection, the Red Room is in control. They'll know who goes in, who goes out, and who's who within the two countries. Which means you can't pose Russian, or Ossetian." She brainstormed, throwing out her answers freely to Clint's nodding approval.

"You think quick, exactly what we need right now." Said Clint.

Aleksandra stopped, and she looked at him. "Not quick enough." She said, a little tinge of sadness in her eyes. Had they punished her for thinking too slow before? Maybe in the midst of sieving out a new Natalya Romanova, they had pushed them in the ways that were quite impossible. "Anyway, can you do French?"

"I can. Why?"

"Immanuel Dupont. French politician. I'm pretty sure he attends the meetings. No reason why he wouldn't this year. He should be going over, if I get the place right, if the time's right. Maybe a business trip to mediate for the genocide." She explained. Back at intelligence, Perkins searched him up. He'd be damned if it led to another road block.

_She's right, Barton. It's all over the French news. It says that politician Immanuel Dupont is heading over to South Ossetia in a week for a conference. God knows why, it hasn't been disclosed_, said Perkins. He could hear the sound of the keyboard being punched into, little clicking noises here and there.

"You're right. Well, Dieu merci, je suis français." (Thank God I'm French.) He said. "Well, Aleksandra. Thank you for your help. They're making their play in a week. We'll probably have a team wheels up by noon. Scout the area, make a plan. You did good."

"Is this how it's like here? Even after six months, even if she's dead or alive, you're still going to find her? You still care for closure?" She asked. The Red Room never did. If someone went missing on the mission it meant that they died. Even if they were still alive, they were left to die. No plan to exfiltrate, or have the captors pay their dues. When one of them asked about this selfish policy of theirs, she got slapped in the jaw with the butt of an automatic gun.

Clint's eyebrows furrowed. "Everybody's an asset, a special someone to someone else, a sibling, a parent, a child. Just like your sister Ana. We don't leave anybody behind."

"Then, can I ask you for a favour, Clint Barton, that if you find my sister, dead or alive, can you bring her back? I would give anything to see Ana again, or at least some closure about what happened." She requested.

He didn't think twice about how to reply her. "Of course." He knew how she felt; having someone he cared about taken away from right under his nose, where he could have stopped it. But another half of him wanted to go back on the deal, because Aleksandra didn't deserve the guilt. The blame wasn't hers to shoulder.

"Also, I am sorry, for my intentions for coming here. If I had a right to my conscience, I wouldn't have stayed in there at all, all the horrible things they make you do. It's disgusting." There had been a fair amount of sincerity in her words, words of apology.

"Everyone's a victim in our trade. People like us, the people we kill. Our organization and our families. The people we know. Victimized, you know. Someone told me that, years ago." He answered, just as he picked up the files and took his leave. "I just don't particularly care whether or not I feel that way, if it means I get to live."

**-flashback-**

When Phil Coulson had left the two to spar on their own, two things came up. One, was their individual style of fighting, in which neither of them had bothered to admit. It was an array of martial arts, acrobatics and gymnastics blended into one. More prominent in Natasha's was the lethal style of dance - ballet and modern to be exact.

He had seen some that could recover from the ground just as fast as her, but he had never seen, not once before, anyone hook him with a leg held in perfect backward attitude, reverse rotation to steady herself on his neck, swing the other leg over, flip him onto his back, and still land soundlessly on her feet out of a walkover. Clint was also pretty sure he spotted a 540 kick spin and an aerial sometime along the way of getting his tough ass humiliatingly kicked by the new girl's technique to engage and strike.

Two, were the conditions. Who got the bed and who got the floor during missions, prompt response in the field, trivial things they could agree on. "If we're going to be in this thing together, where if I screw up, you screw up with me, we've got to get things straight. I'm just saying, if there comes a point that we're out there being partners in crime and you get shot somewhere fatal enough, don't expect me to drag your body across with me. I'm all about self-sustenance, survival. I take the edge, make it into a weapon of my own, and I use it." She said, and didn't blink as she threw a right hook. Nonchalance was the least of what she had in her.

Clint was amused, expectantly waiting for her to voice that thought out. He chuckled, leaning back to avoid being hit, then grabbing her wrist firmly to hold it by the side of his face as he spoke. "You did look like you were one that lacked the least bit of sentiment. I doubt it, though. Maybe just a little."

"Lacking is an understatement." Natasha responded, spinning half a round and locking one ankle to the back of his knee. "Sentiment corrupts the mind of a perfect assassin. To me, it doesn't exist. Doesn't make sense to die in the place of someone you could have killed, had you pulled the trigger on a kid or an innocent. Like I said, I'm about survival." Then she dropped him on his back, retracting her leg and slithering her hand out of his grasp along with.

He fell with a loud thud, and it expelled the air in his lungs instantly. He didn't want to move just yet. The floor was kind of comforting for his aches and bruises, and especially sore muscles. "Which means that you could have killed me when we met. But you didn't. You intrigue me, Natasha Romanoff. Your way of thinking is very sophisticated. Why is that?"

"It's simple, really. You set a goal in life, and stay determined to keep on track. If it means making history and a name for myself, then I'll do what I can. You just showed me a different way of life, not that it'll change the way I think, but maybe less blood on my hands is better. Not to mention, I've done some really disapproving things along the way. I'd like to make it up, and also to you, for you were sent to kill me, but you brought me back at your own risk." She replied, towering over him. Her shadow shaded him from the light until she crouched down by his hips and put a fist to his abdomen. "Ouch. You're dead. You've got to work faster, last longer. People out there are better than you think, Barton. It's not all rainbows and unicorns and children's taekwondo when you're at it."

"Aren't you even the least bit tired?" He asked, heaving a sigh. This woman was killing him a little more each time she broke out a triple threat on the mat of the ring. His brain cells were dying, and she seemed to have barely broken a sweat.

She stared blankly ahead. "They made us do seventy hour weeks when we were of age, around fifteen, sixteen, give or take. Gym, studio, stadium, studio, gym - everyday. Almost killed me when I first started out. Half the girls dropped dead from exhaustion, cardiac arrest. Then they started giving us adrenaline by the needle. I'm accustomed by now. This is just warming me up, really." She then chuckled, when he broke out in an embarrassed smile, but there was a certain sadness in it that he couldn't yet identify.

"So you think you owe me a debt." He segued back to their topic without prompting, and everything went all serious and non-confidential again. Something in him didn't like seeing the all hard assed Natasha Romanoff, someone he had met only weeks ago, sad. The feeling was almost protective, crazy of him to admit. It tugged at the strings in his heart, and it played a piece with his emotions. He didn't understand it. It wasn't love, but it wasn't a mere acquaintance or friendship either.

She held a hand out to him, and he was sure that she would retract it as soon as he reached out. The joke would be on him, right? But she didn't. "One debt to a righteous man is better than to owe one to every other sick bastard I have to kill out there. Its better, I think."

"Barter. I like the way you think." He said, both his eyebrows raised and inching close to his hairline. Natasha pulled him off the floor, then swung a kick to his side. He flinched, but held onto her ankle between his side and his arm, and lifted her off the floor. She wasn't all that heavy. Once her hands were on the floor, he let go for her to kick herself out of the stand with a walkover. "But I'm not any more righteous than the last man you killed. I might even be worse."

"Still, everyone's a victim in our trade. People like us, and people that are dead, and our organization and our families. The people we know." She responded, tilting over the platform to reach for the bottles of water on the bench beside her. She threw one to Clint. "You, and me, we're no different, except that I just like to think of myself as one who doesn't exactly care whether or not I feel victimized, if it means I get to live."

"Do you?" He asked, and Natasha turned to face him after a short moment. The question was vague, but she'd understood. "Do you really want to live like this, in your own denial that craving to kill everyone you see, even me, is how you want to live? To live without a heart?" Honestly, she looked a little hurt to hear that. She was a little tired, and exhaustion made it easier to see through her lies, her hard eyes. He wasn't judging anything about her though. He wasn't one to judge.

"I was made, Agent Barton. I didn't choose to do this, even if all of you think I did. I resisted, I helped someone I cared about, and they put me in a chair and-" She halted, and her face had started to drain of colour as memories played out in her head. Clint didn't know; were they abusive, or violent? Did they play with her head, flip a switch and watch her lose control? "I was human once. Now I'm forgetting how it felt."

He, however, was still unsettled by the sudden halt. World-class, seemingly heartless assassins didn't do much of that. They didn't care, and she could say all she wanted, but he knew that she did. "You can talk about it, you know. What happened, how it felt like. Why it happened. Or even one of your days there. I'd listen, if it's what you need to keep you sane. To remember how it felt like-" Clint said, lifting a hand to her shoulder, only to have it shrugged away and his warmth rejected.

"Stop. Just... Stop." demanded Natasha. She paced a few steps, jumped over the ropes of the boxing ring, adding to the distance between the two of them. They were partners now, but that didn't mean that they weren't strangers. "I don't get it. Why are you being so nice to the one, heartless person in this room that could snap your neck in the next three seconds? I didn't understand why anyone would want to spare a person as cold and as inhumane as me. It's logically unacceptable."

"Logic. Really, Agent Romanoff?" Clint chuckled, amused, and he shook his head. She didn't get the joke. There was nothing funny, whatever he said. "Look... You don't count life by logic. I brought you back because I saw that you had heart. Not a lot, but it's still there, in your eyes. I figured you were worth saving, regardless of what you did, regardless of how much you wanted me to kill you and end what misery they caused you to relive. All that talk about living, about self-sustenance, you could at least fabricate something better than that. If you wanted to die, I had to give you something to die for."

She spared him a quick glance, quite bare of all her walls and iron clad coldness. Something he said had gotten to her, for a little while, but it didn't last much. At least, that was a start that he was getting through to her. And then, Natasha looked away on once more. "I already have something to die for."

"And what would that be?" He queried.

"A cause. A message. That no matter what they do, they're not going to win. They're just in the making of worse victims, how hard they try to make the best." She said. She gritted her teeth as she did, hatred spreading like wild fire through every inch of her. A woman of hatred. Interesting. "I'm not a trophy. I don't live forever. I don't want to. It's hell." She admitted.

"But you first need something to live for. Something or someone that, despite the worst circumstance, you'll remember to keep on fighting for. A belief, or someone you care about. Like, how much I don't mind death, I owe my life to Phil. He saved me, and I don't think dying in front of him is a good way to repay a debt as large as that. So, do you, Agent Romanoff?" said Clint. She remained silent, eyes never shifting from the floor. He had moved up towards the ropes, resting his arms there as they conversed.

He took it as a no, her silence. "Then that's not good enough, well, for me." He concluded, and that earned him one of the Black Widow's epic sighs. "I guess we're going to have to find you that something."

"What 'we'? It's _my_ something, you know." argued Natasha with a scowl. Clint had shimmied through the elastic ropes of the ring too, jumping of the deck lazily and landing not too silently on his feet right beside her.

"You and me," He retorted, index finger pointing between the two of them, "We're a package deal now. Your something, is my _other_ something. You know, Natasha Romanoff and the absolutely great companion Clint Barton, partners in crime, like Bonnie and Clyde riding off into the sunset when the job is done-"

"You know that they died, right? In the end. They didn't get a chance to 'ride off into the sunset'." She said, in her most deadpan voice that it evoked humorless laughter.

"Which reminds me," He quickly segued, not say very abruptly, to his next topic. "Go back to the part where I'm fatally wounded and dying. Would you really leave me there to die? If you would, I'd feel hurt."

"Maybe. A part of me thinks I'll actually try to save you instead. I won't hear the end of it from Agent Coulson if I let you die, right? You wouldn't let him. It's you. Clint Barton rises from the dead." said Natasha, clapping his chest nonchalantly before she left for the exit.

He looked at her, eyebrows raised. Did she just pull a joke on him? He stood stunned for a moment, and laughed it off before catching up with her. "Me? Phil's a natural nag. He'd nag non-stop over a paper cut. Trust me. You do _not_ want to be there."

Behind the doors to the gym that they had put behind them, the echo of genuine laughter and a budding friendship bounced off the walls, like it did the following day and the day after.

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

_"They already know everything about her. What she does, where she lives, how she speaks. They'd want to go deeper, deeper meaning with a scalpel, to cause pain. (Joss Whedon reference yay!) Still, it's just a couple of scars, not like we've never had one before." mentioned Clint, and the councilmen's eyes bolted. Were they threatened? _

_He hinted a smug smile, and he hid it well enough to continue. "But I assume if you were in her position, you wouldn't feel the same, would you? Crying over paper cuts, just another day at the office." Fury tried hard and managed to stifle a laugh. The snark comment had sounded legitimate enough._


End file.
